The saying went that second-generation matadors were always terrified of the bulls, but in their family – who simply bred them – there was no such weakness, her three brothers, Montez, Vale and even Arlo, charging around them on horseback with a fearlessness that left their poor mother shaking.

For Nene, though, it was the horses she loved most: their soft whinnies in the stables, combing out their manes, the way they picked their hooves high in the training ring. But more than anything, she loved the feeling of freedom she felt whenever she slid her foot into the stirrup – not riding side-saddle like the grand Amazonas Españolas her father wanted her to ape, but (out of sight) astride, like a real warrior: muscles braced, the hot air streaming over her as she galloped through the woods and outfields. Her best moments were always the hidden ones.

They skirted the far wall, still far enough away from the hacienda to be confident of moving unseen. They could already see the prize bull in the furthest field; he had to be kept alone – at two tonnes he was by far the biggest bull they had ever bred and would be easily capable of killing more of his brothers than any matador. It was her father who had called him Leviatan. He was high in the shoulder, barrel-chested, with horns wider than her arms’ span, and he could turn as fast as a polo pony.

‘Shh!’ Santi said suddenly, pulling her sharply behind a tree.

‘What is it?’ she hissed, watching as he peered around the trunk. It was only a juniper – crooked and slim-legged: whatever they were hiding from, they wouldn’t be well hidden here.

‘The conocedor,’ Santi hissed back.

Her eyes widened. As her father’s foreman, Pedro Martin was also spy and informant. If she was seen consorting with Santi, after her father’s express orders never to speak to him, she would be for the lash.

She pinned herself behind him, smelling his particular odour of sweat and pines. His shaggy dark hair was sifted a pale coffee colour from the dust and she saw his mother had repaired his shirt again, for surely the fifteenth time. But it was his only one. It would have to keep making do.

‘Did he see us?’ she asked, her hands resting on his shoulders, her voice by his ear.

‘I don’t think so,’ he whispered, his eyes pinned to their enemy.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘See for yourself.’

Carefully, she tipped her head round the tree and saw the foreman cantering up to a bull on the ground. The smear of red on its flank was visible from this distance.

‘Is it dead?’ she asked, watching as he jumped down from his horse and walked carefully around it: these animals, dangerous at the best of times, were never more deadly than when they were injured.

‘Looks like it.’

Nene knew as many bulls were killed fighting each other in the fields as died in the rings; the young calves were particularly bad, always wanting to prove themselves and move up the pecking order. It was the conocedor’s job – or one of them – to protect them from themselves.